


Never Moved Away from Here

by Veneredirimmel (Smilla)



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: M/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:40:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21663853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Veneredirimmel
Summary: “Should have killed you that first day in my bakery,” he says and means it. He would have gotten less grief, more sleep. Kept his eye.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Comments: 14
Kudos: 127
Collections: Peaky Blinders Exchange Round Two: Season 5 Edition





	Never Moved Away from Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkandstormyslash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkandstormyslash/gifts), [convenience](https://archiveofourown.org/users/convenience/gifts), [weeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeo/gifts).



> A small, smutty, Alfie/Tommy treat fic for Darkandstormyslash, Weeo, and Convenience. It owes some inspiration to the idea of Alfie buggering Tommy against the fireplace, from Darkandstormyslash's request/prompt. I needed a break from angst - although, I don't know if I managed that specific goal.

It’s a chase. That’s what it is, between them. All the time. Unfamiliarity, even though they’ve done this many times already, that adds a thrill to the chase. Alfie’s the one doing the chasing, of course, all the bloody work, and the talking too, his speciality. Tommy’s sitting on Alfie’s favourite armchair like a marble mausoleum, looking as much lonely as one. Half there, half gone already. Not like Alfie cares about that, now. He does not. 

So, it’s all the same, as if three years haven’t passed with only a handful of unanswered letters. Alfie agrees to whatever new plan Tommy has come up with, plays it hard but not too much. No sense stretching the truth past plausibility or deniability, past what is contextually acceptable given the stakes. It’s weird being involved into the stakes, too, this time around, because Alfie is, with rage and fury, he is, no matter how many fuck yous he tells Tommy for five thousands more pounds. 

Tommy starts another cigarette, after throwing his previous one half-way through on Alfie’s fucking veranda. He smokes and stares out the window where the sea is placid and fading into the sky. 

A storm’s coming from inland that Alfie feels in his broken bones, in the start of a headache where the bullet smashed his cheekbone and took out one of his eyes. 

He’d dreamed of all the things he’d do to Tommy for botching a fucking simple shot, all the violence he’d unleash on Tommy’s placid, unbothered face, how he’d mess those beautiful features into blood and pain and retribution. 

Somehow those daydreams always turned into night ones of Alfie taking Tommy so hard he’d make him forget he was half dead. 

From behind, he’d take him, like Tommy took his whores, hand buried into his hair, pulling hard, until he wept.

Alfie had only been able to produce a miserable, weak attempt, a drawn pistol the asshole saw right through looking half-way between bored and expectant. Then, disappointed.

“I’d do a better job than you did, Tommy.” A way like any other to attract his wandering attention. That long-yard stare into nothing that is spooking Alfie, if Alfie were inclined to be honest, which he absolutely has no intention of being.

He wants a fuck, that’s what he wants. Deserves it, at the very least for waiting three years to tell Tommy exactly how much of a cunt he’s been.

It has the desired effect of breaking whatever scenario is going on behind Tommy’s absence. The answer is silent: a raised eyebrow, a small curve of the lips as if he’s seeing Alfie’s bluff, again. A challenge, in there, and it’s something that Alfie can work with. He’s not trying to hide his hand.

“I’ll have Edna bring some tea. Do you want some tea?”

“I have some business which I need to attend,” Tommy says, and there is truth in it and an undercurrent of tiredness, like regret. But he doesn’t move or put his cap on, nor he does stand up, so Alfie knows there’s interest, even if only faintly expressed, disguised, recognizable because Alfie knows every facet of Tommy’s impassibility. A habit he learned first for survival, then because it was fun reading things no one ever gets out of Tommy Shelby, being a step ahead in their little games, or trying to. It’s still there, like a memory in his muscles, even from three years of distance.

“So, I’ll have Edna bring us tea and then she’ll be done for the night.” Alfie leaves that hanging in the air like a threat or a promise. Tommy can choose which is which because it’s both. 

When the tea is brought in delicate china cups, Tommy leaves it untouched, goes for pacing the room, instead, like he’s noticing it for the first time. He skims his hand over the wheelchair, peeks at the paintings on the floor, looks like he loses interest soon and finally stops by the fireplace, hands behind his back like he’s waiting to give commands, or receive orders.

All of this, Alfie watches from the brim of his cup; the tea - excellent brew his Edna prepared for them that it’s nonsense letting go to waste - he drinks up as loudly as he can, just to see if he can annoy Tommy into saying something. 

The resolution, when it comes is as swift as Tommy’s perusal of the room has been. It mimics Alfie’s own question from a few moments ago.

“So what now?” he asks without turning around, and Alfie has a few ideas but no answer. 

Alfie groans when he stands up and doesn’t try to hide the noise he makes. Let Tommy feels some kind of guilt if he has a capacity for it. 

He can walk just fine after one of his massages, so it’s good that the only thing bothering him tonight is one of his storm-is-coming headaches. He’s by the fireplace in three short steps, stands behind Tommy close enough to make himself be felt, see if he moves away, waits him out, give him the last chance of backing down. Tommy doesn’t. Alfie nods.

This close, Alfie can see a faint tremor in Tommy’s body, unleashed energy, electric and nervous. His heartbeat is visible on his neck, like if he were a horse after a race. Alfie puts his palm on it ever so gently, against his own much more aggressive plans - and what it is that makes Alfie forget months of pain, he doesn’t know, but Tommy’s skin is flame-hot because of the fire and he leans ever so slightly into the touch. 

“I’m not unfaithful to my wife,” he says, deep from inside his chest, like a thought, a soft whisper. But he doesn’t resist the weight of Alfie’s body against his back, nor the loosening of his tie.

“This is different,” Alfie says into his ear. “This, you owe me. From before.” He doesn’t know if he makes sense for Tommy. It does for Alfie. It has to be enough.

Tommy sighs but his clothing falls on the carpet by the fireplace. Coat and jacket and shirt and undershirt. It’s uncharacteristic, this detail, for Tommy’s always been meticulous with his undressing, revering his clothes with an economy of movement and the precision of a horologist. Maybe, just maybe, he’s as in need of this as Alfie is. 

They fall themselves on the rough carpet, flames on one side that make skin glow, the chill of a late afternoon in Margate on the other side. Running cold and hot like Tommy always does. 

Alfie counts ribs, skims bones under a fine layer of tense muscles like Tommy’s a starved junkyard dog. Ravenous. He yields under the weight of Alfie’s body, half-hard and loose like he’s finally giving in.

This is not about love, Alfie thinks, as he pokes for holes and weaknesses in Tommy’s carefully kept armour with his searching fingers and his blunt nails. This is about silence and repentance, about getting what had been lost between them on a sunny white beach, when bullets were shot. Something of that old fury burns inside Alfie, hot and looking for an outlet so he bites over an old injury on Tommy’s shoulder, on a patch of skin that’s rougher and puckered; a ruined canvas that tells an unknown story.

A noise, short and strangled that Alfie wants to hear again, so he doubles down. Insists on the same exact spot, does it over and over, harder on each attempt like they can go back in time, undo what’s gone on between them. His teeth a punishing travelling machine that leaves reddened skin on its wake.

He grinds his own weight against Tommy’s body as if he can meld into him, and it hurts, against the knobs of his weak bones, and the fullness of his hardness, it hurts. Delicious and utterly unlike what he’d planned on doing. It’s not supposed to feel this good, for himself, for Tommy, as he pushes back, with enough strength he retrieves somewhere, even kneeling on the floor and in this awkward position.

It was supposed to be about pain and retribution, not this offering. When Tommy turns around and then kneels he re-enacts Alfie’s dream-like fantasies, but gentler and softer in ways that cut Alfie’s breath short. Back to front, flames smouldering outside them and between them, hard spine against ribs, slick with sweat, resting for a moment, until Alfie can breathe again.

The mechanics of it are too rushed and too fast, on the side of too painful and too tight when Alfie takes Tommy; re-takes mostly, like he’s a possession that he had lost, like Tommy is Alfie’s for a few blessed moments.

“You never apologized to me,” he says when Tommy settles securely on Alfie’s lap, hooks his arms around Tommy’s so he can’t escape, neither his words nor his unflexible embrace. Can’t move. Only the barest hint of a fight, the faintest tensing of his muscles, when Tommy realizes Alfie’s trapped him in a cage of arms. He lets it go immediately, always in command, even now, of his own body’s responses. 

He bends his head sideways. “You never apologized either.” 

Alfie guesses it’s fair, doesn’t stop him from pushing upward a bit harder, drawing a pant from beneath his ribs and an echoing one in Tommy. It’s hard, maintaining control like this when what Alfie wants to do is to bend Tommy at the waist and gain some space and purchase that will allow him freedom of movement. He should do that. It’s his right, innit? Yet, against his own judgement, he doesn’t. It’s self-inflicted torture, taking this as slow as it takes to stretch the moment for as long at it can last.

From his position, all that Alfie can see is the sharp edge of Tommy’s jaw, a closed eye beneath a messy flop of hair, a reflection of flames from the fire on the side of his face. A drop of sweat. He rocks back and forth, then sideways, then back again. Once, twice. Tommy goes with it, his loud breath the only audible sign or what goes on inside that head of his. He doesn’t ask for more. And even that, to Alfie, feels like strategy.

Alfie’s skin burns where they touch. The very air he breathes so hot it leaves a trail of fire going down that sets him ablaze from the inside out. From some place that never forgot and will never forgive, he finds the willpower to stop his rocking.

Never one to shy from hard challenges, Tommy only allows the barest puff of air to whistle in protest through his teeth. The corner of his lips turns upward, a raised eyebrow.

Alfie can only imagine how they look locked like this, naked and flushed with sweat and heat in front of the fireplace. He wished he could be outside of himself to see with an objective eye, maybe sear the canvas of his living room with them in it into his brain so he never forgets. 

“Should have killed you that first day in my bakery,” he says and means it. He would have gotten less grief, more sleep. Kept his eye.

Tommy only hmphs an unimpressed answer. The noise vibrates down Tommy’s spine and into Alfie, sends a jolt like sudden lightening deep inside, and Alfie cannot keep still anymore, he has to move. Up inside Tommy, again and again, played at his own game, he realizes, but the thought is as fleeting as smoke gone as soon as his vision blackens and his spine tingles all the way up to his neck: a quiver in his body, exquisite and warm. 

When he opens his eyes, he realizes he’s resting against Tommy’s back, held upright, both of them, by Tommy’s arm on the ground. Tommy’s arm is trembling with exertion, holding their combined weight, with long muscles, the sinew of his forearm hard and corded. He’s panting ever so slightly, head bent against his chest, hidden by dropping hair. 

Alfie doesn’t ease his weight back to take from the strain, adds a test in its stead when he touches Tommy ever so slowly: a skim of knuckles, a swipe of fingers, a pressed thumb. 

Tommy takes it in stride like it’s a challenge and he’s winning it. Even when Alfie teases a slow, long orgasm out of him, Tommy keeps holding them up. 

_We were not meant to be like this._ Alfie thinks, but he doesn’t know what he truly means or where this leaves them for the time being. What’s been shared between them, and what future if any it brings to them.

They finally slip on the carpet face to face with a groan of release and tired muscles. Tommy’s eyes are obscured by the fire at his back. He sighs, touches Alfie’s scar on his face. It’s like forgiveness. Maybe it’s an apology.  
\--


End file.
